Lair of the Shadow Broker
"Doctor T'Soni, it's a pleasure to see you again," Miranda welcomed us as we arrived at the Normandy.
"Miranda Lawson, I am glad to see you are well," Liara replied politely.
"Same to you," Miranda said.
"You two know each other already?" I asked as I stood there in surprise.
"Miss Lawson was the one that I originally contacted when I began my search for your body, Scott. Through her, I first met Feron," Liara explained.
"And you never told me this before, Miranda?" I looked at the Australian beauty.
"It wasn't important enough for me to tell you," she said back. "After Feron began helping Liara, I didn't have any involvement with you until your body was recovered from the Shadow Broker."
"So you'll have a vested interest in rescuing Feron as well?" I said to Miranda. She seemed taken aback by the suggestion that he was even alive,
"But he was lost when… he's still alive?"
"Yes," Liara said definitely, "and we all owe him a great debt for helping us to bring Commander Gardner back. We have the location of the Shadow Broker's base of operations, Feron is being held prisoner there."
"Understood," Miranda said, "then welcome to the Normandy SR2, Liara."
The Normandy was in the air in less than five minutes after we were all on board and Miranda allowed Liara to work in her office while she was with us. I offered Liara a tour of the ship to meet all of my squad properly, but she was as focused as ever and set straight to work. I gathered the squad in the comm room again and explained the situation to them all to make sure they understood what was going on. This was primarily a rescue operation, with the secondary objective of completely removing the Shadow Broker altogether. That was on an "only if the opportunity presents itself" basis.
Of course, Tali and Garrus already knew and were quick to take in all the details, but the rest of them struggled to actually believe that our target was the elusive Shadow Broker who had never been seen by anyone before, or at least no one who had lived to tell about it. However, their amazement and disbelief soon subsided and gave way to eagerness and enthusiasm for the upcoming mission, exactly as I had expected of them. There was nothing that my team was afraid of now.
Joker set a course for Hagalaz and I went to check on Liara once the team had dispersed. I found her pouring over the information from the OSD again and she barely even seemed to realise that I had entered the room until I spoke.
"Hey Liara, I was just coming to check up on you. You ok?" I asked as I sat next to her. Liara was drawn back into the world of the living and sat silently for a while as she looked at me,
"The shock of the assassination attempt has worn off. Now I'm just anxious to get onto the Shadow Broker's base."
"We'll get there Liara, don't worry. But you shouldn't arrive there half dead from exhaustion. Get some sleep. Get something to eat while you can."
"I will… I promise," she said.
"Good," I said as I relaxed in my chair, "what are you looking for now?"
"Anything really. Something that would give us a better clue as to what to expect when we reach Hagalaz. But so far there's nothing."
"This is really important to you isn't it," I said to her. Liara turned away from the screen and towards me, gazing at me through those big, kind blue eyes.
"I've lost two extremely dear friends over the last two years, and now I have you back. I want to be able to say the same about Feron."
"Were you two close?"
"Friends, yes," Liara nodded, "there was no relationship or anything, I had strong feelings for someone else at that time…"
The way her voice trailed off as if she did not want to say anymore made me curious,
"Liara… why did you go through so much to find me? My corpse? There was no way you could have thought I would ever be brought back to life, even Cerberus wasn't sure."
Liara reached out and tenderly took a hold of my hand, feeling my skin with her soft fingertips.
"Tali was not the only young woman you rescued that ended up… falling for you. When you died, I could not let you go, and Cerberus was the only group that gave me even the slightest glimmer of hope that I could see you again. That's why I gave you to them."
I sat speechless as Liara looked at me. I simply did not have anything to say,
"I… I'm sorry Liara. I never knew," was what I eventually managed.
"You had Tali," she said with a smile, "and I knew enough not to act on my feelings or do anything to complicate what you and Tali had between you, something beautiful."
"Thank you, Liara," I said, "that means a lot to me. But you know you could have told me, I wouldn't want you to be unhappy while we were on the Normandy together."
"You had bigger things to worry about than the personal feelings of a single Asari…"
I cut Liara off,
"Don't say it like that, you're important to me and you know it," I told her.
"And you are important to me," Liara said back, "I could never describe how I felt the first time you walked into my office on Illium. Strolling in back from the dead as if nothing had happened, I felt as if I had a part of myself back."
Now I held her hand and comforted her and she said,
"Do not worry, Scott. I will not do anything to come between you and Tali. I should get back to work now. But thank you… for listening."
"I'm happy to, Liara," I said warmly, "you know you can come and talk to me about anything. But going back to what I said about you relaxing, you should go and take some time out in the lounge with Garrus and Tali or something. The new crew are an inspiring group of people that you should really meet! We've even got a Geth working with us."
Liara looked at me like I had gone completely bonkers,
"That is interesting. How did that happen?"
"Why don't you ask it yourself? Its name is Legion," I laughed at her bemused expression. Liara checked the computer screen and, for a moment, I thought she was just going to get back to it and dismiss what I had said as the ramblings of a madman. But with a sigh of amusement, she stood up and went to exit the room.
"My scientific curiosity is getting the better of me," she said with a grin, "you know me too well, Scott."
After Liara had headed to the engineering deck to find Legion, I headed to the lounge to think about the extremely personal things that Liara had just told me. There was never any doubt in my mind that Tali was the only girl for me, but to find out that one of my best and most treasured friends had been in love with me all along was something to think about. The things that she had gone through to steal my corpse right out from under the Shadow Broker, only to hand it into the trust of Cerberus, could make even my head spin. I truly had a most sacred group of friends around me and I reminded myself there and then never to take any of them for granted.
I sat by myself at the bar in the lounge for a while. I had poured myself a drink but was yet to take a sip, there was just too much on my mind. Liara's admission of her feelings for me, the prospect of a full-on assault of the Shadow Broker's base and what I would do afterwards hung around me like a little black cloud. Then a very welcome Quarian came and sat down beside me, placing her hand in mine and our eight fingers entwined,
"Are you ok?" Tali asked me. I gave her a smile and put my arm around her,
"Yeah I'm good. I'm surrounded by close friends, old and new, and I've got you here with me. There's just this sense that… things are coming to a close."
"What do you mean?"
"If we manage to defeat the Shadow Broker and rescue Feron, there's nothing else left on my to-do list…"
I wondered if I should tell Tali of my plans to hand the Normandy and I over to the Alliance. I would let my crew and squad go their own way before hand, of course, but it meant that our team, our fellowship, would come to an end and Tali and I would be parted again. That thought hurt me more than any other, and Tali knew there was a battle going on in my mind.
"Talk to me," she said softly.
"I'm going to hand myself over to the Alliance," I told Tali, knowing that she would argue immediately, "I have to."
"Why?" she asked, not liking this at all.
"We cannot beat the Reapers by ourselves, Tali. It's going to take the united strength of the entire galaxy to even have a chance of stopping them. I've seen what they did to the Prothean Empire and we're not nearly as strong as they were. I need to convince the Alliance to get itself ready, and if I'm lucky I can use the goodwill I've built up with Councillor Anderson and the others to have the other species do the same. But I can't take you or any of the others with me. There's a high chance that they'll detain me for working with Cerberus."
"But you were only doing that to help those poor colonists," she said.
"It won't be as simple as that to them," I said regretfully, "I'll be interviewed and interrogated, they'll probably not believe that I was really dead for those two years. But if the Alliance arrests you and Garrus and all the rest… it's a diplomatic bomb just waiting to go off."
When Tali did not reply I stood behind her chair and put my arms around her,
"I'm serious about us, Tali. You know that. But with the galaxy about to be invaded by a fleet of machines intent on wiping us out, we can't just sit back and let it happen. A lot of difficult choices have to be made. And trust me when I say that this is the hardest one I've made yet."
"I don't want to be away from you, Scott," Tali turned around to me, the top of her hood nestling under my chin, "we don't know how long it could be before we see each other again… if we see each other again."
"We will Tali," I told her confidently.
"How can you know that?"
I carefully took Tali's mask off and looked her in those vibrant purple eyes,
"I died Tali, and when I was brought back, I thought I would never see any of the old team again. I thought I'd never see you again, hear your voice, hold you. But on my first mission after waking up, there you were on Freedom's Progress. I never really believed in fate before, but you and I can never be truly parted. No matter how long I'm imprisoned, no matter how devastating the Reaper invasion is, we will find each other again."
"I believe you, Scott," Tali said as she closed to me and kissed me. Her supple lips touched mine and I knew that there was no force in this universe that could keep me from Tali forever. A little smile appeared on her face and she said with a happier voice,
"You know what I just realised? We don't have any holos of us together."
She sat me down next to her and took a selfie with her Omni tool and we looked at the holo of us. Tali's head was on my shoulder, a lock of her shiny black hair flowing down across my chest and the smiles on our faces so happy, so genuine.
"Something just for us," Tali said to me and kissed me on the cheek before putting her mask back on. She took another holo of us and uploaded both of them to my Omni tool,
"That one you can show people," Tali joked.
We sat for a little longer and discussed my plans. I would do everything in my power, use all my connections and pull that I had to get Humanity ready for the war that was approaching us. Tali told me that the Quarians knew the Geth enough to know that Sovereign was definitely not a Geth dreadnought like the Council had the rest of the races believing. However, despite her father being the senior member of the Admiralty Board before the Alarei incident, she was doubtful if the Admirals would listen to her pleas to get the Migrant Fleet ready for the invasion. They were far more focused on recapturing Rannoch from the Geth. She was an Admiral's daughter, not an Admiral herself.
Tali promised me that she would do everything that she could, and I hoped that her close relationship with Admiral Raan would help us. Once I went back up to my room, the first thing that I did was print a physical copy of Tali's holo, the one with her mask off, and stick it on the inside of my armour's breastplate over my heart. Men of war had carried tokens from their loved ones into battle with them for millennia. They did it because it made them stronger, bolstered their resolve and made them remember what all their pain and suffering was for. With Tali at my heart, there was nothing that was going to stop me, and the Shadow Broker was going to feel the sting of my wrath first.
"Glad I'm not the one flying into that!" Joker said as we hung in orbit of Hagalaz following the stormy sunrise. The ferocity of the storm was far greater than anticipated and I was doubtful that our shuttle would be able to handle such a trip. The Shadow Broker's ship, however, was an advanced construction that seemed to have been created specifically to fly in such conditions. More interestingly, EDI informed us that the ship was not designed to be space worthy, the Shadow Broker never expected to be found and have to leave Hagalaz.
Covered from front to back in lightning conductors to avoid the hull of the ship being damaged, and complete with a massive shield at the back, the vessel was huge. At least the size of an Alliance dreadnought. No weapons were detected, but we all knew that there would be a large number of the Shadow Broker's private soldiers on board, just waiting for us to charge in. However, I was planning on being far more discreet than that and I had told Thane and Kasumi that when we landed on the hull of the ship, it would be their job to find a way to infiltrate the base undetected, bypassing the majority of the internal security. The very thought of breaking into the Shadow Broker's base greatly excited the thief,
"You do know how to treat a girl, Scott!" she commented.
After the short amount of time that Liara had spent aboard the Normandy, and after the briefing that I gave the team, my squad had by now at least been introduced to my old friend and she had Garrus, Tali and Joker to vouch for her as well. Meeting Samara the Justicar had been enlightening for Liara as well and she had obviously had an interesting conversation with Legion, but was disappointed when she learned that the Geth had almost as little knowledge about the Protheans as organic races did.
The busy architect-turned-information broker had barely left Miranda's office over the day that it took us to travel to Hagalaz's system, and Miranda told me that she had found the young Asari asleep at the desk. However, now we were all focused and ready to get back into the action. We crammed our full complement into the one remaining shuttle.
"Cerberus could not afford two shuttles?" Liara asked as we all squeezed in, taking up almost every bit of free space there was.
"We had two," Miranda answered, "but the Commander got one blown up."
"Of course, he did," Liara laughed and gave me a look that said "how typical". I gave her a cheeky smile back,
"Consider this team building," I joked.
"Any closer together and I'm pretty sure some of us would practically be fraternising," Garrus said with a chuckle. Miranda, who was pressed up against the hefty bulk of Grunt, visibly grimaced at the Turian's words. Kasumi, whose chest was very obviously touching Jacob's muscled back, had the giddiest smile I had yet seen from the eccentric young woman.
The ride down to the Shadow Broker's ship was extremely choppy and once we were flying over the top of the ship's mid-section, we all welcomed it when the doors opened and we began to drop out. The power of the wind was horrendous and I felt the need to switch my mag-boots on at low power so that I did not get whisked off of the hull.
"Everyone keep low and follow Thane and Kasumi," I told my squad as we slowly began to creep towards the back of the ship. A bolt of lightning struck the conductor next to us and caused us all to hunker down for a moment, but when nothing else happened and there was no obvious response from any kind of security, I was convinced that we had achieved the surprise that we were looking for. The only attention we attracted was from maintenance drones.
"One of you tech geeks take those things out before they try to "clean" us from the hull," Zaeed said aloud.
"No," I said, "don't destroy them or there'll be some kind of warning go off in the ship. Tali, can you hack them and tell them there's no debris or anything?"
"I'm on it," Tali said and began tinkering on her Omni tool. When she was finished, I saw the pair of approaching drones stop and turn around, leaving us alone.
"Nice work, Tali," I told her gratefully.
It took some time to clamber our way to the back of the ship and when we were quite near where Liara suspected the Shadow Broker's main control centre would be, Thane called our attention to a hatch leading to the inside of the ship. Once he dropped inside, the two guards nearby were swiftly silenced. We were inside the Shadow Broker's ship, and I was under no illusion of just how big a deal that was. The Shadow Broker was the most secretive, elusive and enigmatic person or group of people in the galaxy and here we were infiltrating their headquarters with their guards completely unaware of our presence. Perhaps we could find and rescue Feron and get out again without a shot being fired.
My entire squad was gathered together inside the hatch, and now we had to negotiate tight corridors at least another hundred metres back through the ship to reach the possible site for Feron's prison.
"Gardner-Commander," Legion said to me, "we can access their security to prevent us from being seen by their security cameras, and in the event an alarm is triggered, we can limit it to only this section of the ship."
"Do it," I said, "could you download the schematics for the ship? Help us know where to go?"
The Geth was quiet for a few seconds before its light focused on me again,
"Complete. Dr T'Soni's information was accurate. Holding cells are located along the hallway located outside of this room and then to the port side of the ship. The main control centre is located at the end of the hallway."
"Good, then we know where to go."
"Gardner-Commander, a warning. The power to the holding cell is linked to the Shadow Broker's information network," Legion told me, Liara approached to listen in. "In order to release our target, we shall also have to cut the power to the main control centre."
I looked around to Liara,
"Sounds like we'll have to face the Shadow Broker anyway."
The Asari gripped her submachine gun,
"I welcome it," she said fearlessly.
With our weapons trained on every doorway and up and down the corridor as we went, we reached the detainment section of the ship and Liara could not help but be the first one through the door. I worried that her emotions were getting the better of her and she simply went through the door and killed the first guard to see her. Unfortunately, the sound of the gunfire provoked a fast response from the other mercenaries and there was a short but bitter fire fight. We were a team of fourteen and only a handful of soldiers were pitted against us, it was a convincing win for the Normandy team.
Scanning through the computer, Liara found Feron's cell and we raced there as quickly as we could. When we came to a stop, I looked inside the dark cell to see a Drell strapped down into a chair. He looked terrible, a victim of two years of torture, beatings, electrocutions and drugging. As she gasped, I realised that the sight seriously hurt Liara and when she tried to access the control terminal to open the prison, I could see tears welling up in her eyes.
"Liara stop," I told her.
"We have to get him out of there," Liara argued without looking at me.
"Tampering with this terminal will result in the Drell having an electrical charge sent through his body," Legion said to Liara.
"But… we have to save him," Liara argued. At the noise, I saw the Drell in the electric chair stir and look around for the source of the commotion.
Feron was drowsy and understandably confused by the sight of such a strange group standing outside of his cell, but when he recognised Liara I saw a glimmer of hope appear in his eyes,
"Liara?" Feron said weakly, "is that really you?"
"Just hold on Feron," Liara told him, "we're here to get you out of here."
"We must proceed to main control centre," Legion repeated beside me. Feron nodded slowly,
"You have to cut the power to all main systems to get me out of here, try to hack the terminal and my brain cooks."
The warning was clear enough and Liara immediately withdrew her hands from the console,
"We'll be back for you," she told the imprisoned Drell, "I swear it!"
"Go to central operations," Feron wheezed, "you know the Shadow Broker's waiting on you, don't you?"
Just then the Drell screamed out as a shock was fired through his body and I felt the despair that Liara was feeling,
"I'm counting on it," Liara said with a deep fury burning inside her.
A squad of mercs were dug in outside central operations, and for a while the corridor was the scene of a bitter confrontation. The mercs had two Asari among them and both possessed strong biotic powers which were able to hold us back for a short, tense time. I kept looking behind us in case this squad were simply performing a delaying action for reinforcements to arrive and attack us from the rear. In such a situation, this mission would become extremely dicey, but my mind went back to the Collector base where it was just my squad and I against thousands of Collectors trying to hunt us down and slaughter us. A bunch of mercenaries were not going to stop us.
I signalled to Jack and Samara, my powerful biotics, to hammer on the barriers that the enemy were using while I got my Widow rifle out and aimed for the first enemy Asari. Under the relentless assault from Samara, Jack and an adrenaline fuelled Liara, their barriers began to weaken. I fired. In the confined corridor the blast of the immensely powerful rifle had my ears ringing and the first Asari toppled over as the bullet smashed through her head.
The second Asari crapped herself and I sent Grunt forward with Zaeed and Garrus close behind him. The Krogan roared his way towards the stunned mercs and soon their defence had been torn apart by the blood rage of Grunt. One merc attempted to run for it and I got him in the back with the Widow, tearing his spine and ribs to pieces. Thane appeared next to the last surviving merc and with two short, sharp jabs with his hands, the enemy fell to the ground as a corpse, his neck broken. All that remained now was central operations and the Shadow Broker. Liara had the door open in an instant, enacting her revenge was most prominent in her mind.
We moved into the room beyond slowly with our weapons raised. The first thing that caught my eye was the flashing and thrashing of electricity that seemed to be stored in a power unit in the centre of the ceiling. The sheer natural power of the storm outside was being harnessed by the Shadow Broker's ship. Monitors and terminals blinked away all around us and at the far side there was an enormous communications uplink that took up the entire back wall. The Shadow Broker could contact all of his informants and contacts from there, and the infamous info broker himself sat at a desk before us.
It was huge, like no other creature I had seen before. Even Krogan were not as big as the creature that sat behind the main desk. Its eight large eyes looked calmly over my entire squad and I saw its massive shoulder muscles flex. The Broker bared his razor-sharp teeth and stood out of his chair, towering over all of us,
"Here for the Drell?" a deep voice growled at us, echoing around the room, "reckless, even for you, Commander Gardner."
The beastly creature's eyes homed in on me and remained transfixed. I met the dark stare,
"The assassins you sent after Liara weren't exactly subtle," I said.
"A necessary action."
"No it wasn't!" an enraged Liara shouted, "neither was keeping Feron prisoner for two years."
"Feron betrayed me when he gave Cerberus Gardner's body. He is simply paying the price," the Broker said casually, seemingly unconcerned about the fourteen guns aiming straight at its face.
"Someone was bound to come after you sooner or later for working with the Collectors!" I warned it.
"It was a mutually beneficial partnership. It's a pity you destroyed the Collectors, the reward for your body was… substantial. But I could still fetch a healthy reward for some of your companions, Dr T'Soni. The Geth, genetically perfect Krogan and Subject Zero alone would be worth more than you could fathom."
"Just try it, see how it ends for you," Jack muttered, her finger ready on the trigger of her shotgun. The Broker merely grumbled back in contempt.
Liara had had enough,
"You're not laying a hand on anyone!"
"It is pointless to challenge me Asari," the Broker said with barely even a glance in her direction, "I know your every secret, while you stumble in the dark."
Suddenly, and unexpectedly, a sly smile appeared on Liara's face,
"Is that right? You're a Yahg. A pre-spaceflight species that was quarantined to your homeworld for massacring the Council's first-contact team. This ship is older than your planet's discovery, which probably means that you killed the original Shadow Broker about sixty years ago. I'm guessing you were probably brought here by the Broker by a trophy hunter as a slave… or a pet. How am I doing?"
The Shadow Broker stared at Liara, the silence in the room was tense and heavy.
Suddenly, the Yahg grabbed his desk and pulled it straight off of the floor and threw it with all his might at Liara. I had to yank Tali out of the way and Liara was just able to dodge aside but poor Miranda took the full force of the hurled metal desk.
"Take him down!" I yelled to the team. I ran over to Miranda and helped her back to her feet before joining the rest of my squad in unleashing every shot I could on the Shadow Broker. The roar of the guns was unbelievable in the enclosed space of the control centre, but the Broker did not even seem to be even a little concerned. The amount of fire we were putting on him had annihilated all of our previous foes but he drew out a heavy machine gun that normally would have taken two men to carry and operate and he unleashed his own volley of devastating firepower.
I darted from one support column to another as the high calibre bullets smashed into the walls and consoles all around me. With my Mattock I fired back, but the Broker's kinetic barriers were just not giving up. Every shot was being deflected and all biotic and tech attacks were proving ineffectual. All the while, the Broker could simply waltz right up to us and tear into our positions with his machine gun at point blank range. It was a death sentence for any that he was able to catch. The Yahg was not a quick mover, but the control room was small enough that he could bear down on us pretty quickly.
"Where are you, T'Soni!" the Broker growled out as he twisted and turned looking for her. Bullets were flying at him from every direction but the Shadow Broker seemed intent on finding Liara first, his sworn enemy for the last two and a half years.
He threw his massive body into a computer terminal that Zaeed was using for cover and sent my friend falling to the ground. As Zaeed fired back and tried to get away, the Broker raised his machine gun and I knew that Zaeed would be cut to pieces in a matter of seconds. Without thinking, I was sprinting out of my cover and hurtling towards our enemy. There was one thing that the Broker's shields were not equipped to block. I threw my body against the raised machine gun and knocked it away, then threw my fist as hard as I could into the Broker's face, followed by another punch and another. The Yahg's massive fist came flying back at me but I ducked, rolled and was around behind him in an instant. I crashed my boot down into the back of the Broker's knee and smashed the butt of my Mattock into his broad back. I pounded on him time and time again before the Broker activated another shield from his Omni tool and managed to slam it into me.
My team knew that we had a way to hurt him, but closing in on the Broker when he had a machine gun that you could quite comfortably equip as a tank's secondary armament it was still too big a risk. I was determined that we were not going to lose anyone now after having been through so much. The Broker knew his weakness as well and became far less complacent. However, another weakness was soon exposed. Zaeed hurled a grenade at the Shadow Broker, but the frag bounced off just like the hundreds of bullets before it. Just then it exploded just over the Broker's head, shrapnel zipped through the air all across the room and narrowly missed most of my team. I noticed then a spike of electricity shoot from the lightning stored in the ceiling down to the Shadow Broker's shields.
That was where their unending power was coming from. As soon as I could, I skirted around the room and found Liara to tell her what I had figured out,
"The kinetic shields are being powered by the lightning of the storm."
Liara looked over at the energy store in the centre of the roof, her smart mind instantly making the connection.
"We take that out and the Broker's shields won't be a problem any more," I said and started firing at the containment unit. Liara then pulled me down,
"I have a better idea," she said with a flash of inspiration, "if you can get the Shadow Broker directly under the containment unit, we can defeat him in an instant!"
"Let's do it," I said. I told the team what we needed to do and they all worked together to draw the Shadow Broker right to where we needed him to be. Half of my squad would cover the other half as they all slowly moved around so that they were all in the same section of the room. The Broker blazed away with his machine gun and advanced towards us with his Omni shield raised. He was impervious to any conventional weaponry and Liara's idea was our only hope of defeating him, other than destroying the ship with the Broker on board.
With baited breath, I watched as the Shadow Broker lumbered towards us, his machine gun never seeming to run short on ammunition. Then, to my disappointment, the Broker started skirting around the edge of the flooring beneath the power unit. As heavy bullets thundered over our heads, Liara suddenly leapt out of cover and began yelling at the Yahg,
"You want me Shadow Broker? Well here I am. Come and get me!"
The Broker turned on her immediately and roared with anger, walking straight towards her under the energy storage. Liara's biotics flared up and she sent a ball of energy smashing into the glass that separated us from the lightning within. She tried to break the glass apart to release the energy on the Broker, but it was proving more difficult than she had anticipated.
"All biotics help Liara break that containment unit open!" I shouted to everyone, causing the Shadow Broker to pause. He realised that we had a plan and tried to rush out of our planned kill zone, but he was too late.
Liara, Jack, Miranda, Jacob, Samara and Thane had all pooled together their biotic power and tore the glass roof apart sending lightning firing straight at the Shadow Broker underneath. We all dived for cover behind whatever we could find as the immense amount of energy was released into the room, threatening to fry us all alive. I could hear the shrieks of the Shadow Broker above everything else, the pain and horror all intertwined with his dying bellows.
All the energy above our heads was finally expended and I judged it safe enough to leave our cover. There was no trace of the Shadow Broker whereas before he had been such a huge presence, and Liara stood silently where the Yahg had been completely incinerated. She looked relieved, but exhausted and I went to stand beside her.
"It's over," she said quietly, barely able to breathe as the adrenaline still pumped through her body.
"We have to crash the information network to allow Feron to escape," I told her as I moved over to the communication hub, Liara following right behind me.
"Perhaps… we don't need to lose it," she said.
"You're suggesting…" I waited for her to tell me what was going through her head.
"We get Feron out yes, but… all of the Shadow Broker's information, his contacts and trading sources, we cannot let an opportunity like this slip by."
"You… want to take over the operation?"
"We cannot lose this," she said assertively.
We shut down the network for a minute once I had sent Miranda and Jacob to get Feron out of his cell. When the Drell was brought limping in, we brought him up to speed on what had occurred and what was going to happen. Liara turned the network back on and was immediately met with a barrage of urgent messages from all of the Shadow Broker's contacts spread across the galaxy, all of them panicked by the sudden loss of the network.
"This is the Shadow Broker," Liara said through the comm, her voice being disguised on the receiving ends, "we experienced a minor technical fault while updating systems. However, power has now been restored and I want a full report on all operations within the next solar day. Shadow Broker, out."
"You're the new Shadow Broker…" Feron said in disbelief, and I could hardly get over what was happening either. Liara was hunched over the communication hub and I saw a tear rolling down her cheek.
"Give us a minute," I told the rest of the team and they respectfully went out of the room to give us some peace to talk. When the door closed, Liara began to speak,
"With the network I can help you… I can…"
She was completely overwhelmed by everything that had happened and I could do little more than put my arms around her and hug her, reassure her that everything was going to be ok.
"It's ok Liara. I'm here, we're all here."
"Thank you, Scott," she said, looking at me with grateful eyes, "I don't know how I could ever have done this without you."
"Are you sure this is what you want Liara?" I asked as the screens on the comm unit flickered and flashed as contacts made calls and sent reports.
"I… feel like I am meant to be here," she told me, "I can help you in the fight against the Reapers. The Shadow Broker would have known of things that few others would, people to contact, tools to use, research being conducted. He… I will have agents in the governments of most species I assume, I can use that to put extra pressure on the races of the galaxy to make preparations."
"It'll be good to have someone that believes me," I joked, finally managing to put a smile back on her face, "but if you're the Shadow Broker, would you allow me to let a few select people in on our little secret? If you could work closely with Councillor Anderson and Admiral Hackett then it would really help my case when… when I turn myself over."
Liara gave me a thoughtful and knowing look,
"I will do anything you ask of me, Scott. If there is one man in this galaxy who has a chance of bringing us all together to defeat the Reapers, it's you. However," Liara turned her attention back to the communications hub and information terminals, "I still do not know what I have got here. It'll take some time to see exactly what the Shadow Broker knew."
Just then a drone appeared and drifted towards Liara,
"It will be a pleasure to help you organise your data, Shadow Broker," the drone said in a polite voice, "there has been a dip in efficiency within the last fifteen minutes."
Liara and I threw each other amused glances and my Asari friend said,
"Well, that will make things easier."
We had accomplished our mission and it was time to go. The Shadow Broker had been defeated and Liara, one of my most trusted friends, had taken over as the biggest information broker in the galaxy. The parting was emotional for Liara as Garrus, Tali and I said our fond goodbyes before boarding our shuttle to head back to the Normandy. I watched the colossal ship disappear from view and I wondered when the next time I would see Liara would be. Liara was certainly someone I would miss, and after having confided in me her true feelings for me back in the SR1 days, I felt that there was a bond between us that would be difficult to break. Given the nature of her new job, I would be surprised if our paths would ever cross again.
Feron was staying with her and that made me feel a bit better knowing that she would still have one friend around her. What I did know was that she was devoted to the cause against the Reapers and all of us had a personal contact log for Liara that she had quickly set up. In this way, nearly every species could in some way benefit from our new Shadow Broker and receive vital Intel on anything that Liara found. However, we had to be careful. Reveal the wrong information and we could also inadvertently start a war that would leave the galaxy weakened as a whole, making the Reapers' extermination of organic life that much easier. Back aboard the Normandy, I called my team, my dearest friends and most trusted allies, to the comm room. It was time for my final plans to be revealed to them.